Aleda Lutz & John McCain III
Aleda Lutz
Aleda Lutz was a U.S. Army Flight Nurse and one of the most celebrated women war heroes during World War II. Lutz was the first American woman to die in combat during World War II and the highest decorated woman in the history of the U.S. Military.
She enlisted in the Army Nurse Corps on February 10, 1942 and was commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant. All nurses in basic training at Selfridge Field were asked to volunteer for Air Nurse if they could pass the pilot's physical. Only Lutz and two others, Clara Murphy and Veronica Savinski, were assigned to be Flight Nurses.
On December 17, 1943, Aleda was promoted to 1st Lieutenant. Lutz was transferred to the 802nd Medical Air Evacuation Squadron, the first unit of its kind. This highly classified unit consisted of C-47 cargo planes which flew to the battlefront with ammunition, supplies, and emergency cases that were headed to hospitals.
Lutz participated in six separate battle campaigns over a 20-month period, accompanied air combat missions, and conducted all-weather medical evacuations in Tunisia, Italy, and France. The 802nd had gone farther into the combat zone than any other Medic Unit with nurses. Not one of the 3,500 people she helped evacuate died under her watch.
On November 1, 1944, she was fatally injured in a Medevac C-47 crash near Saint-Chamond, Loire, France. The Medevac was transporting 15 wounded soldiers (6 German POWs and 9 American Soldiers) from Lyon, France to a hospital in Italy when the plane crashed.
The official explanation was that a violent storm was encountered. The pilot lost control of the plane, and it crashed on the side of Mount Pilat. Recent evidence, however, holds that the plane may have been shot down. There were no survivors. Lutz was 28 years old, and the only female on the plane. It is believed that Lutz volunteered for that flight, despite the perilous conditions.
John McCain III
John McCain III was a politician and military officer who served as a U.S. Senator from Arizona from January 1987 until his death August 25, 2018. McCain graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1958 and received a commission in the U.S. Navy.
On July 29, 1967, a fire broke out onboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Forrestal. The fire was started by an electrical anomaly which caused a Zuni rocket on an F-48 Phantom to fire, striking an external fuel tank of an A-4 Skyhawk. The flammable jet fuel spilled across the flight deck ignited and triggered a chain-reaction of explosions that killed 134 sailors and injured 161. At the same time, Forrestal was engaged in combat operations in the Gulf of Tonkin during the Vietnam War. The ship survived, but with over $72 million in damages, not including the damage to aircraft.
While on a bombing mission during Operation Rolling Thunder over Hanoi in October 1967, McCain was shot down, seriously wounded, and captured by the North Vietnamese. He was a prisoner of war until 1973 (five and a half years). He experienced episodes of torture and refused an out-of-sequence early release. During the war, he sustained wounds that left him with lifelong physical disabilities. McCain retired from the Navy as a captain in 1981 and moved to Arizona, where he entered politics. After being diagnosed with brain cancer in 2017, John McCain died on August 25, 2018, four days before his 82nd birthday.
(Image via Wikipedia; Pinterest)
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